Le Bilig Last Hurrah!

Last weekend the French restaurant where I displayed my France photos, invited us to their last dinner - not at the restaurant, but at their house. We invited Bonnie & Tom to join us and what an adventure. Marc and Monica's home was nestled underneath the valley oaks, and you felt as though you were already in France or Italy. It was amazing. The outside of their home was done in rock and the stucco was painted a Tuscany gold. They allowed us to tour the inside of their home. It was very tastefully done, not over-the-top, but REAL and authentic. Large beams in the ceilings, the dining room was probably 20' long and a huge dining room table made out of very large beams was the main piece of furniture. It was amazing.

The dinner was awesome: Empenadas, it was like a shepherd's pie made of pork with thinly sliced potatoes and carrots, and a green salad. The hors d'oerves consisted of a small bowl of Kalamata olives, green olives, the smallest dill pickes I've ever seen and petite figs quartered, and served with focacia and sour dough breads. Dessert was flan and beignets!! Bon appetit is right!!

And if dinner wasn't enough, the live entertainment was authentic Gypsy Flamenco dancers from Spain. The lead dancer did not speak any English. Three dancers and they all sang to the accompaniment of two male guitar players and one of the men also danced with one of the flamenco dancers. We had never experienced anything like that before and it was just a memorable evening with friends. Enjoy the photos!

Brittany, Paris, Villefranche

Went to the doctor yesterday and got my stitches out - there were only about 6 of them - the rest being tape keeping the 'gaps' together! ;) The pin doesn't come out until the end of August - that one I'm not looking forward to, but all in all she said it looks great. I can start putting pressure on it, which I've been doing and it's wearing me out I must say. I did take a photo of my before foot - so when it's all over, I'll take an after and post it! Won't that be special! Hah!

Next year my husband and I plan on going to Greece among other places in Europe (hence the foot surgery now). But I was contemplating where was my favorite place that I've travelled to and taken photos. I love visiting all new places and know that I'm not done, but I would have to say it was France. France for me was almost like going home. I could see myself living there, and I hated to leave. When my sisters and I travelled over there we were there for 3 weeks and we saw the north western parts of Brittany, Paris City, and the French Riviera. And we experienced the TGV, their train system. Now you know language is all about the pronunciation. We saw the acronym and said, "tee, gee, vee". But if one was to ask a Frenchman, they would look at you like deer in the headlights! Then we realized, drop zee Americain accent and use your French accent! "tay, zhay, vay" and then they responded, "oh, oui, zee tay zhay vay! ; )

Trudging Along

I finished my "sorting" of photos project and can't do much more until I can get out and buy some photo albums - but I have time for that. In the meantime, I found some, what I call, "black mail" photos. I was just having too much fun poking fun at relatives: mostly my nieces and nephews. Then I think Cecile had just about enough and said, "...funny how all YOUR photos that we see are cute"! So, I can play fair and I scrounged up some of my growing up years photos. Man, I was homely. Heck, I didn't grow into these front teeth until I was at least 18. They were the same size at 7 years old! And so, I am sharing one of them with you in case you wanted to see what I looked like "back then"!

I believe I may have mentioned a copyright free photo my friend Rocky shared with me of the San Francisco Cliff House taken in 1889. I did some printing out on various types of photo papers and thought I would share that one here also. All I've got to say about these two photos is, WHAT A COMBO!

Recuperating Photographer

I've finally hobbled out to my studio and have decided I can work on some sit-down projects - like sorting photos. That took a couple of hours with my foot in a drawer and now my back got a little torqued, so I'm on the computer in a comfy chair.

As I'm looking at all the photos which were taken any where from the 1940s all the way thru today, it's interesting to see the progress: black and whites with old scotch tape still stuck in some of the corners and with bends still in them that wil have to be scanned in and touched up; moving on to kodachrome 3x3s, 4x6s, enlargements; and color polaroids. The edges have gone thru some changes too, from the fancy wiggly edges of the 50s with white borders all around, to straight white borders to now where there are no borders. Of course my favorite part is just seeing the natural aging process of our families. How we thought we looked ugly or fat or whatever, and we look at them now in our "surreal" years and think, DAMN, I looked pretty hot! Or, cowabunga, Mama's looking great in her Marilyn Monroe look-alike dress! And then of course, I did find some photos worth scanning and sending them to family with captions like, "Oh, look you had hair!", or "Lyle Lovett's got nothing on you bud!", and "Was that a bus that parted your hairdo?" I sure crack myself up! ; )

Come back after I add some old stuff!

Satisfied Customers

So the family finally got to see the photos and they loved them. Janel and Jason suggested I do more portraiture, but you know, being a casual, no stress, scenic photographer, I find that portraiture and wedding photography are high stress for me and I don't care for it. I'll do it for family and that's about it.

For those who read my blog and who apparently remain anonymous! ; ) my surgery went surprisingly well. My foot is now loaded with titanium screws and I am banished to the downstairs bedroom (the France room). I've discovered I am totally uncoordinated on crutches, my derriere is already destroyed, I'm bored to tears, and thank God for electronics. My husband has been really supportive but I fear he is already frustrated - but maybe not. I haven't taken any drugs yet today....we'll see how that goes. I am attached to a TENS unit which manages pain with electronic pulses. That's cool! I think I would be in a big heck a hurt if I didn't have it, since my foot feels really, really heavy. And my left hip is already feeling the pain from hobbling to the bathroom and back. But it's just a foot surgery and I am going to live, so shut up Soto! As Frankie once said, "I'm alive, I'm alive!"

Family Photoshoot

Today I picked up the proofs - all 170+ - and put them in an album for my daughter-in-law and family. Later I printed out an 8x10 color family pose and it came out rather nicely. It's really hard to get a family of five all looking the same direction when the children are all under the age of 5! Then I changed some of the ones I thought might look good in B&W to give them an idea of what could be done with these. That's the main reason I used the digital because of my short time frame to get this done, so that I could change them easily, even though that's not my gig to do it that way! ; ) If I don't run out of time I may develop the one roll of B&W film - but really, I AM running out of time!

So here's a couple you can see for yourself!

Photo Shoot

Yesterday morning was the photoshoot with my daughter-in-law and her husband and three boys. We have really lucked out with all the great weather - not too hot for summertime! It was a two hour shoot and the setting was really beautiful. I'll have to remember that one for future portraits. Portraiture is not my thing, other than to do it in B&W in a more secluded setting where I can maniupulate the shadows and light. So we took photos under a giant oak tree, along the stream, on the grass, and on the rocks in the middle of the stream. Since I am pressed for time (with two and a half days to surgery) I used my husband's digital so I could immediately go have the pics printed out right away, which I did, and I can give them these as proofs next week. I did take a roll of B&W for some of the shots and will develop these before Wednesday, I hope. But I think these I may use for Christmas gifts if they come out exceptionally good.

However, today I must say I AM sore! Running around back and forth in the park - it can be brutal on an older person! Like they say, "I'm no spring chicken!" Of course, after yesterday morning's photo shoot, I took it upon myself to go out in the yard and plant a couple of plants, pull some weeds, pick veggies, and just play out there since I won't be able to get out of bed for a month. It was beautiful. Later I asked my hubby to make us some "gin rickies" so we could have a drink out in the Japanese Pavillion with our dirty fingers wrapped around a cold one!